


ashes to ashes, but always the ocean

by pocky_slash



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Fix-It, M/M, Mixtape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It takes Charles a matter of seconds to realize that no one is going after the man in the water.</i> Or, how Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr come together, break apart, and then slowly learn to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ashes to ashes, but always the ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littledust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/gifts), [brilligspoons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/gifts).



> Written to accompany a mix for **littledust** and **brilligspoons** , located [here](http://pocky-slash.livejournal.com/1581385.html). Eight songs, four set during the movie, four set after. The songs on the mix and the italicized lyrics before each section are by Dar Williams, and if you like them, you should buy all her albums because she's amazing.

1\. So Close to My Heart

 _never had a friend as close as you_  
so close to my heart  
i dropped everything when you came through  
so close to my heart

It takes Charles a matter of seconds to realize that no one is going after the man in the water, the man whose pain is so sharp it's twisting his mind into knots.

It takes that same matter of seconds for Charles to turn around, strip off his jacket, and dive in after him.

He's never seen Erik Lehnsherr, but Charles knows him immediately and intimately and he can't let him get away. He can't lose this man before he's even found him so he dives down, down, down, the warm salt water swallowing him up as he begs Erik to stop, wraps his arms around him.

Charles has had Raven, and she's wonderful, but this--god. Someone with such power, with such passion, not a little sister, but an equal...his chest aches, and not just from the lack of air.

When they're finally pulled back onto the Coast Guard boat, Charles offers Erik a hand up and he takes it, fingers big and warm and strong and, once they're on deck, just as hesitant to let go as Charles'.

*****

2\. I Love, I Love (Traveling II)

 _and i'd not believed it til i loved, i loved_  
the rivers sing and stars awaken above me  
and the wind and the moon in fits of restless conspiring  
turn night to heaven for you

 _but i am going to a far, far land_  
i know it sure as i've a past and a future  
with my maps on the table, you see, i have lost many things  
so many i won't turn back

 

Erik thinks he is going to die killing Shaw.

That's not true. Erik _knows_ he is going to die killing Shaw, and that's what frightens Charles, that he thinks he has no other choice. It seems like he's thought this forever, and Charles can see why. Shaw is obscenely powerful and Erik's control is still dependent on his unstable emotions. Erik doesn't doubt that he can beat him, he just doesn't think he'll be walking away from it.

The gratifying piece in all of this, the reason, Charles suspects, that Erik allows him access to these thoughts, is that, for the first time in his life, Erik regrets this. He regrets the possibility of dying to kill Shaw because Erik now has something to lose, something to miss, someone to leave behind.

Charles knows that Erik is in love with him. He'd be able to read it in his mind, of course, but Erik hadn't shied away from saying it, either. Erik doesn't lie to himself and he doesn't see a reason to lie about how he feels about Charles, as irritating and infuriating as Charles knows Erik sometimes thinks he is. Erik thinks that Charles is strangely delightful and unexpectedly beautiful and Erik's only regret is that they have no future, because Erik has no future. Erik is on a journey and he can't stop, not even for Charles, not even when the idea of a life lived with Charles, finding and training other mutants, shaping the history of their species, is so appealing.

It breaks Charles' heart, time and again, but he doesn't know what to say, how to make it better. He _can't_ make it better, not really, because no matter how many times he tells Erik that they can defeat Shaw together, that life will go on afterward, he knows Erik doesn't believe it. He knows that every kiss, every touch, every murmured affirmation is given with the hope that it will make up for years lost. He knows that Erik tells him he's unbelievable and fascinating and, yes, loved, to soften the pain of their eventual parting.

Erik is wrong. He has to be. They're stronger than Shaw and they can beat him and his friends and come back whole, come back together. Charles believes in their future, and until he can make Erik believe it too, he accepts the affection he's given and eagerly awaits the day when it's given not out of penance for leaving, but out of appreciation for staying.

*****

3\. The Ocean

 _and the ones that can know you so well_  
are the ones that can swallow you whole  
i have a good and i have an evil  
i thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing  
you are a welcoming back from the ocean

 

Erik's mind is oddly comfortable for all its darkness, all the torment thrumming beneath tightly locked doors. Charles doesn't walk around constantly rustling through Erik's thoughts, but he does find his mind curling through Erik's whenever they're in a room at the same time, wading in it without looking past the surface.

"Do you do that to everyone?" Erik asks one night as they play chess.

"Do what?" Charles asks, glancing up from his study of the board.

"Slide into people's minds," Erik says. "You're not very subtle. I feel it every time."

"Oh," Charles says and he tries not to blush. "No, no, I--I'm not trying to be subtle. And I don't do it to everyone. Your mind is...unique. It's...indescribable. It's fascinating."

 _Comfortable_ , Charles doesn't say. _Warm. Familiar._

Erik does not look impressed, or even flattered.

"My mind isn't a vacation destination," he says. "You're welcome to come and go as you'd like, but my pain isn't a novelty for you to explore."

Charles' breath catches in his throat.

"I...that's not what I mean--" Charles tries to say, and Erik shakes his head. There's a flare of frustration and disapproval that makes Charles' stomach roll. "No, Erik, really. It's not--it's nothing to do with that--" He grabs Erik's hand before he can retreat entirely, pushes forward _warmth strength perseverance love fortitude singlemindedness_ and a bevy of emotions he can't put into words.

They both stay very still for long minutes.

Erik breaks the silence.

"You see what you want to see," he says.

"So do you," Charles replies.

It's not a resolution, but Erik doesn't tense when Charles slips back into his mind, and that's good enough, for now.

*****

4\. The Business of Things

 _and the line gets drawn_  
and we draw the line  
and we say, "it's only  
the business of things."  
how can it be?  
how can it be when it's you and me?

 

Erik says, time and again, that all their powers are remarkable and unique. Erik says that they need to nurture and develop their abilities. Erik says, as Charles flirts with a girl in a bar, that he doesn't understand how Charles can waste his time with humans when there are so many beautiful, fascinating mutants out there. Erik says, as he crowds Charles against a wall, presses their mouths together for the first time, that Charles deserves to be with someone who appreciates what his mind can do, how different and gorgeous it is. Erik says he needs to embrace his power, expand it, train with it as intensely as the children are training. Erik says that Charles' telepathy is one of the most incredible things he's ever seen.

So when Erik puts on the helmet, when Erik willfully and intentionally blocks Charles out, Charles knows they've reached a turning point.

Maybe he's lucky that he can barely feel his heart breaking, thanks to the searing pain in Shaw's (his) skull.

*****

5\. Beautiful Enemy

 _my nation's grand_  
your name's not on any signs  
it's so well-planned  
and so well-groomed and yet sometimes,  
the past tornadoes through  
people talk about you.  
can't they see that your reign is steely and torturous?  
i start thinking that i am sinking inside a hollow fortress.  
oh my enemy, beautiful enemy  
my stride is slowed by memory  
but not innocent, no not innocent  
no one's innocent

 

The boys tip-toe around mentioning Erik's name or Raven's. They don't mention that the plans for the school, which he used to cheerfully discuss over dinner at the mansion while they trained, have been revised to erase any hint that Erik was ever a part of them. They have doubts and concerns and their own rage--Charles can feel it all bubbling under the surface of their minds. If he was a better man, he'd encourage them to confide in him, to unleash the pain they've been bottling up in an ill-conceived attempt to aid in his recovery. He's not a very good man, though, he's found, so he keeps quiet and leaves them to their personal angst, too caught up in his own misery to care about anyone else's.

Every day of those long weeks in the hospital, Charles curses Erik and what he's wrought and what he's ruined.

Every night, he curses himself for being too blind and too arrogant to see this coming.

*****

6\. It Happens Every Day

 _it happens every day, at the crossing of the street_  
looking out to see what's new and what is just the same  
and the only word for love is everybody's name  
and that will always stay--happens every day  
and every day will happen without you

 

Charles throws himself into his work, but it's not enough. He wants it to be enough. He wants the children--and this new class really _is_ full of children, a handful of pupils on the verge of adolescence--to be what drives him. He wants to find peace in the school, in his political dealings, in his research. He wants to feel complete, like he's making a difference, and he _is_ and he knows that and he sees it on the faces of every new student who doesn't have to _hide_ anymore, but.

But he watches his students learn and laugh and fret. He watches the staff go about their business and the familiar faces of delivery men and landscaping crew and repairmen drift in and out. He goes to town and sees the same people in the same shops. They're normal and happy and he waits for the same contentment to come to him.

It won't. He needs to make his peace with that, he knows, but when he wakes up every day, he still can't seem to look anywhere but at the empty spot beside him.

*****

7\. If I Wrote You

 _we drew our arms around the bastard sons_  
we never would drink to the chosen ones  
well you know the way i left was not the way i planned  
but i thought the world needed love and a steady hand  
so i'm steady now

 

It happens in fits and starts. He finds himself thinking, _God, I should tell Erik that_ and instead of flinching when he catches his mistake, all he can do is smile wistfully. He's not angry--he doesn't have the time or energy to be angry anymore, and he can't say he doesn't understand Erik's point of view. It's hard, some days, running the school, keeping all the balls that secure their anonymity in the air.

He doesn't regret sticking to his own beliefs. He doesn't regret not going with Erik. He doesn't even regret Erik leaving. Erik needed to forge his own path, and Charles understands that, now, as much as it hurts. He never would have stayed at the school, not with so much rage and inner turmoil. He doesn't approve of what Erik does, but he understands it, and the world needs an antidote to Erik's extremism, someone to show them that not all mutants are violent, that not every mutant has destruction in their hearts.

That doesn't mean he doesn't miss Erik and Raven every day. He sleeps alone and wakes alone and there's no one to call him old half a dozen times a day, no one to cheerfully mock his studies, no one to kiss him long and slow and hot over a chessboard.

Erik left a hole in his life, yes, but he's past the point of resentment. He thinks of Erik often, and rarely with spite. He just wishes there was a way to tell him he was forgiven. Forgiven and still loved.

*****

8\. In Love, But Not At Peace

 _and i still need the beauty of words sung and spoken_  
and i live with the fear that my spirit will be broken  
but that's the way i thought it would be  
that's the way i always wanted it to be

 

"Hello, old friend," Erik says, sitting at the other side of the chess table. "Washington Square Park is an odd choice for a business meeting."

"Not a business meeting," Charles says. He puts his book aside and looks at Erik. He's greyer than he was when they met ten years ago. There are more lines on his face, too, but something is softer. It's like some of that sharp rage has finally drained away.

It's a good look on him. It makes something twist in Charles' chest.

"Not a business meeting?" Erik asks, eyebrows raised. "I was led to believe by your sister that you were going to offer me a job at your school."

"I am," Charles allows. "And we will definitely have a business meeting later tonight. I've already booked the restaurant. But that's for later. This is something else entirely."

Erik picks up the black king and rolls it between his fingers. Erik was never subtle. "What is this, then?"

"This is..." Charles says, sucking on his teeth thoughtfully. "A proposition, we'll say."

"And here I thought it was business before pleasure," Erik says dryly.

"I was never much for doing things by the book," Charles says lightly, and then swallows hard and forces himself to meet Erik's eyes, to stop hiding behind the veneer of cheerful banter. "Erik," he says, as serious as he's ever been. " _Erik_. I--you must know I've never--"

"I'm not the same man I was ten years ago, Charles," Erik says. He looks away and rubs his forehead. He looks so tired. Charles supposes that's to be expected--he's barely stopped running for ten years.

"Nor am I," Charles says, voice thick and clumsy. "It's better that way, isn't it? Ten years ago, we were young fools, convinced of our ideals, our immortality. Maybe humility is what we both needed. Maybe--Erik, even if you won't teach--we've worked so hard. We can give ourselves this, can't we?"

Erik replaces the king and then, almost hesitantly, twitches his pointer finger. A pawn moves forward two squares.

"Your move, Xavier," Erik says, but when he meets Charles' eyes again, there's something warm deep within them, something not unlike hope.

Charles swallows against the lump in his throat and thinks that maybe this was worth the wait.


End file.
